Tribune, Cablevision reach agreement

Tom Cleary

Updated 12:50 am, Saturday, October 27, 2012

After a blackout that lasted two months, Tribune-owned television stations returned to Cablevision's airwaves in New Haven and Litchfield counties Friday evening after the companies reached an agreement on a new contract.

But the Tribune stations will not be coming back in Fairfield County.

WTIC (Fox CT), WPIX (CW) and WCCT (CW) had been off the air in Connecticut since Aug. 24 as a result of the contractual dispute. Terms of the new agreement were not released Friday night.

While it's good news for Cablevision customers in New Haven and Litchfield counties, who were without any Fox or CW national and local programming during the blackout, it's the end of an era for those in the Bridgeport area, including Fairfield, Stratford and parts of Milford, which for years has had duplicate affiliates of both Fox and CW.

The agreement ends that duplication for customers in the New York designated market area, where WNYW is considered the local Fox station, Cablevision said. Local programming available before the blackout, like Fox CT news and talk shows "The Stan Simpson Show," and "The Real Story," will no longer be available in Fairfield County as a result of the agreement.

A message appeared Friday night on WTIC, Channel 25 in the Bridgeport area, stating, "Under our new agreement with Tribune, Fox programming will be exclusively available on Channel 5. We appreciate your patience and thank you for choosing Optimum." A similar message was shown on WCCT, channel 20 in Bridgeport, pointing viewers to WPIX (Channel 11)

Cablevision viewers in the company's Norwalk region, covering the remainder of Fairfield County, never had WTIC or WCCT as part of its lineup. WPIX had been off the air across all Cablevision systems.

Cablevision said in a statement issued Friday: "We are pleased to have reached agreement with Tribune to return its stations to Cablevision, particularly its Fox affiliate in Connecticut, the only source of Fox programming for about 50,000 of our customers. We sincerely appreciate the patience of our customers as we worked to reach an agreement that is consistent with our focus on minimizing the impact of rising programming costs on cable rates."

Tribune also released a statement announcing the agreement.

"We thank our viewers for their loyalty and continued support," the company said. "You can look forward to the return of your favorite CW shows. ... We're looking forward to bringing them the top quality local and national programming they expect."